Thursday, November 3, 2011

Doing what I can

As I have probably mentioned before, it's not always easy for me to be a stay-at-home-mom. There have been a lot of adjustments (on top of being a new mom) and being super broke does not help lessen my desire to return to work. Thank God for miscellaneous money-making opportunities! So just in case I haven't talked about this before, I only have two issues with being a stay-at-home-mom. First, I suck at it. I'm getting better, but truly, I'm a terrible home-maker. The second reason is that I feel like I should be working. We could use the extra income and I've worked since before I was 16. Ok, and I was good at what I did. Really good. And the money wasn't too shabby in my line of work.

After being a home-maker for almost 2 years now, I am glad to say that I'm getting better. Having a small child that depends on a constant schedule helps a lot. It forces me to be more organized with my time and plan my days better as well. Since she's now getting into everything and putting all kinds of things in her mouth, our house has to stay cleaner and more organized so that helps me stay on top of household duties as well. I'm using flylady.net for some of my house cleaning advice but that site just seems to cluttered for me to get the hang of. The rest of my house cleaning and home managing skills came from my favorite magazine, Real Simple, and other little tidbits that I have found have helped me.

Ever since leaving my job in 2009, I have wanted to figure out how to run my home efficiently like I would an office or any work project. After all, that I could no problem. I was used to finding solutions for problems and setting up new systems in a business environment, why couldn't I figure out how to do it in my home? Enter my saving grace: a simple project management template. I took my to-do list and broke it down into a timeline, a step by step action list for each area, as well as milestones along the way to meet before I could go to the next step or area. Actually, there was a lot more breaking down of what I expect from myself as a home-maker and stay-at-home-mom, but the point is it worked.

Each day, I get closer and closer to being a successful home-maker. I'm sure that title means a million different things depending on who you ask, but I have a pretty specific definition in my mind. As for my progress today... I have a safe home for my child, with plenty of open space for her to play in, I'm being the best mom I can be, my home is cleaner, more organized, and me and hubby are actively working at making our lives more organized as well. It took a long time coming, but I'm getting there.